


Crawls like a worm

by RaisingCaiin



Series: Maedhros in Angband AUs [1]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Blood and Gore, Gen, Gore, Mercy Killing, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, emotionlessness in the face of horror
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-23
Updated: 2016-10-23
Packaged: 2018-08-24 05:57:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8359867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RaisingCaiin/pseuds/RaisingCaiin
Summary: "Send your strongest to treat with me," the note read. "If you are too feared to come yourself."





	

**Author's Note:**

> tags will be added and rating will go up - please be aware! this one looks like it's going to be grim, even for me

 

A messenger had stumbled into Maedhros’s tent in the first hours of the dawn watch, breathless and nearly incoherent with shock as she passed along the watch captain’s demands that Maedhros come up the sentry line. It had taken Maedhros’s strongest words, repeated several times, to send her back out into the pre-dawn light to rouse the others: whatever the catastrophe was, it had so shaken the hardened warrior that she had barely seemed able to understand speech.

Maedhros had already been at the line for several moments by the time Erurávo, his own captain and right hand, had joined him; they were in the midst of determining the necessary orders when Maglor and Caranthir arrived.

“What- what is this?” Maglor whispered, stopping some distance away. As if the space would make the sight any less real.

Caranthir, ever the more practical, strode forward and crouched down beside Maedhros. “When did this get here?”

“During the night watch, we think,” Maedhros said. “But no one saw anything.”

“We may need to reconsider our choice of sentries,” Erurávo agreed.

All three watched as healers swarmed around the body that had been left on the outskirts of the Fëanorian camp.

“No carrion-beasts had been at it?” Caranthir asked.

“It’s, er, difficult to tell,” Erurávo said. “The wounds – well, let us say that they would have to have been inflicted by scavengers far more vicious than any carrion-creatures we have ever observed.”

Caranthir cocked an eyebrow.

“I suspect that the word that Erurávo dances around is ‘torture,’” Maedhros said evenly. “The eyes are gone. The ribs all along one side are crushed. The genitals have been ripped apart. And that is only what I could see before Calivarnië pushed me aside.”

Maglor retched, somewhere behind them.

Caranthir’s eyebrow rose further. “ ‘Torture’? That is not a word I have heard before.”

“It’s a Sindarin term, used to describe individualized warfare conducted by the Enemy,” Erurávo explained. “As far as I can tell, it means something like-“

“Something like hurt that goes beyond killing,” Maedhros finished for his captain. “If you can imagine such a necessity, Moryo. The Sindarin have had to create a word to describe pain inflicted beyond the call or cause of war.”

 “Ah,” said Caranthir.

“Ah, indeed,” Erurávo agreed.

Both Elves jerked in surprise as the healers fell back, with muffled shrieks and a few curses picked up from the local tribes. Below their hands, the body convulsed.

Despite the damage to the hröa, the fëa yet lingered. The body still lived.  

Caranthir and Erurávo were on their feet in seconds, pressing forward among the healers to help hold the juddering form down, Caranthir grimacing as he laid bare hands to exposed bone and sinew. Maedhros did not join them. He stayed crouched where he was, though the milling rush about the body now blocked his view.

“Manwë and Varda bear witness,” Erurávo hissed from somewhere before him, applying more pressure as the body shook harder still. The soldiers had taken to repeating parts of the Oath in memory – hardly the most intelligent curse to use, but it seemed to assuage any questions as to whether they were doing the right thing, and so Maedhros had given up on forbidding them.

“Nelyo, Kano, you need to see this,” Caranthir called.

“No, I rather think I do not,” Maglor called back. He had retreated further back down the hill, as if hoping to escape the stench.

Maedhros stood and crossed over to Caranthir’s side, wading through the scrambling healers.

“Look,” Caranthir urged.

Beneath the tatters of cloak still wrapped about the body, a scrap of parchment had been pinned. The Elvish arrowhead holding it in place had become half embedded in the lacerated chest, and the note was wet and bloody.  

Maedhros reached out to remove the parchment, but the arrowhead was firmly in place.

“Rip it,” Caranthir told him, growling as the body jerked and shuddered. “Valar, where is this one getting its strength?”

Maedhros ignored his brother. Setting his fingers in the mess of fevered flesh and slippery blood, he gripped the arrowhead itself and yanked.

The blunt steel tip stayed in place. The body convulsed again, with a horrible gurgling howl. Maedhros ignored the sound, the renewed curses, and the flies that now crawled their inquisitive way across his gory fingertips and the bloody flesh beneath alike. He tugged harder.

The body nearly folded itself in half this time; the sounds tearing from its bruised throat might have been words. “Nelyo!” Caranthir cried.

Maedhros tugged again, and this time the steel tip came free. Straightening, he shook the note with a frown. Drops of liquid splattered onto the healers and Erurávo still crouched beneath him.  

“Well, my lord?” Erurávo asked. “Is it still legible?”

It was. The neatness of the Tengwar characters belied an orcish hand; either someone among the Enemy’s camp could read and speak their tongue, or else one of their own had been forced to pen this.  Perhaps the body at his feet, even. Before being reduced to its current state.

_To Fëanor, self-appointed leader of the usurping forces: greetings!_

_As you have no doubt seen, I have sent one of your own back to you. His injuries were dire, but I had them treated them as best they could be. I hope that he is not too much worsened by the time you find him; a cold night’s exposure, or the ravages of even the smallest scavengers, may spell his death. I utterly regret the necessity of leaving him unattended, but I could see no other options than to leave him outside your camp. Your people have been regrettably stiff-necked about opening a dialogue to ensure that such measures need not be taken in future._

_Perhaps you have seen the error of this approach, now? I sincerely hope so, for I would see no more of our people – either of our peoples – suffer from such preventable hurts._

_I will await your response in a neutral place. Know you of the range of mountains to the east of your encampment? (Yes, I know you squat beside the Great Western Lake.) I am told they are called, most amusingly, the Ered Wethrin: five Sun-falls hence, come to the pass nearest your camp._

_Send your strongest to treat with me, if you are too feared to come yourself._

_Sincerely,_

The note was signed with an indecipherable name.

It was vile, a mockery of everything their people had suffered, and the address to Fëanor – only recently killed in the Dagor-nuin-Giliath – was almost the least of its insidious claims to truth. There was no way that the mutilated body at Maedhros’s feet had gained its extensive, intimate damages in impersonal warfare. The Enemy had done this in person, and now mocked them with the knowledge that He had done so. He lied to their faces and expected their belief, or their willing blindness, and He called upon Maedhros’s dead father as though there were any way Fëanor could answer. It was not to be borne.

With one swift clench of his right first, Maedhros crumpled the note.

“What is it?” Maglor called up to them.

“A summons,” Maedros answered evenly. “The Enemy wishes to treat with us.”

“The Moringotto cannot actually mean that,” Maglor called back. “It is undoubtedly a trap!”

“Shield your delicate stones, stop shouting, and get up here!” Caranthir shouted.

“Lord Kanafinwë is correct, though,” Erurávo said grimly. He remained crouched in the dirt, helping hold the thrashing body down as the healers scrambled to prepare supplies, but he looked up at Maedhros as he spoke. “Likely the Enemy seeks to strike at us, thinking we are in disarray-” he paused, but then went on, for Erurávo was nothing if not forthright: “after the loss of our king. We must not answer. We must hold strong.”

“I am going,” Maedhros said.

“Are you _mad_ , Nelyo?” Caranthir cried grimly.

“Now who’s shouting?” Maglor called. “What’s Moryo on about?”

“What should we do with this?” Maedhros asked, scuffing at the bloody dirt beside the body.

“Dispatch them to Mandos,” Erurávo recommended calmly. “My lord,” he added when Maedhros turned back to look at him.

“Are _you_ mad, captain?” Caranthir asked, more in shock than in anger. “How could you even think of such a thing?”

“How is it any different from what we have already done at Alqualondë?” Erurávo asked reasonably.

“It _is_ different! Now you would act in cold blood. . .” Caranthir trailed off.

“Goodman, save your herbs!” Erurávo told the shocked healer. “Those who may yet heal and fight will have greater need of them, soon enough.” While one hand remained on the body’s shoulder, restraining it, Erurávo had already drawn his hip-dagger with the other.

Caranthir still gave a mute cry of protest.

“It is different, at least, in that this is no innocent, this time, nor a craftsman protecting his life’s work,” Erurávo agreed. “This is one who cannot linger much longer, anyway, and is hardly less guilty than the rest of us. But.” He held his dagger steady as he looked up to meet Maedhros’s eyes. “If you say me and my logic nay, though, lord, I will not.”

Maedhros met his captain’s gaze and nodded. “I will not stay you.”

Erurávo nodded, and stabbed down.  

Maedhros did not stay to confirm the death-throes. He had seen enough already to know what they looked like, and Erurávo’s aim had always been true.

**Author's Note:**

> some miscellaneous notes:  
> 1\. Historical knowledge is a thing! In other words, the Silmarillion narrator had all (or most) of the pieces of the puzzle in front of them as they were writing; in the moment, the key players were probably missing some crucial information. The possibilities are fascinating. Fëanor, for instance: supposedly only his sons witnessed his death after the Dagor-nuin-Giliath. We can take that two ways: it's a story, made up after the fact, or it's true, and noe one else knew. So. When would anyone else (i.e., Morgoth and Co.) have learned that their biggest opponent was gone?  
> 2\. Erurávo's a translation of "Ariel," which itself is a defender's name meaning something like "lion of God" (Eru+rá+[o] = God+lion+[masculine names suffix]). I don't know what I would do without Quenya101


End file.
